Drapes and curtains are usually suspended from essentially horizontal tracks, which are fixed to either the ceiling or a portion of a side wall in close proximity to the ceiling of a room, to cover a window opening. The track extends in the vicinity of either a window or a wall portion that is desired to be covered with the drapery or curtain. The track includes a plurality of carriers that are movable along the length of the track, either by sliding relative to a longitudinal path defined between a pair of longitudinally extending, laterally spaced elongated rails or by rolling along the rails by virtue of wheels or rollers that rotate relative to the body of the carriers.
Traditionally, drapery systems have been attached to carriers by means of a double hook. The double hook includes a lower hook that terminates in an upwardly extending pointed pin that is embedded into the upper portion of the curtain or drape and an upper end which includes a downwardly turned pin hook that extends into an eye of said carrier to which eye the upper end hook is engaged so that the curtain or drapery is suspended in spaced relation along the length of the upper edge portion of the curtain or drapery to a series of carriers that move longitudinally along the length of the overhead essentially horizontal track to provide a series of supports for the curtain or drapery. The carriers may be attached to one another through flexible strings that limit the spacing of adjacent carriers from one another and to ensure essentially uniform loading from support point to support point along the length of the curtain or drapery.
Curtains or drapes of the type just described present a difficult problem whenever it is necessary to launder or change the drapery or curtain. Each pin must be removed from the drapery in order to prepare the drapery or curtain for laundering. Then, when the laundered drapery or curtain is reinstalled, each pin must be attached to the drapery or curtain in a time consuming and uncomfortable operation.
In order to provide a more efficient operation than the pinning and unpinning operations just described, the drapery art has developed the use of mating male and female snap members, one of which is supported by one of the carriers that move longitudinally of the overhead track and the other of which is attached to the upper portion of the curtain or drape. While it is an easier job to use a snap system having cooperative snap fit members than a pinning and unpinning system which preceded the snapping and unsnapping system, the prior art snap systems developed prior to this invention were beneficial only in use with flat curtains having an elongated snap tape containing one of the pairs of cooperating snap fitting members sewn directly or otherwise attached as by sewing material directly onto the top portion of the drapery or curtain and in a position to engage the other snap fitting member that was carried by the one or another of the carriers that move longitudinally along the overhead essentially horizontally extending track. However, flat curtains are undesirable and pleated curtains are preferred. Pleated curtains have a series of pleats spaced approximately uniformly along the length of the curtain. It is not possible to sew an elongated snap tape onto a pleated curtain because the pleats interrupt the smooth surface of the curtain and, therefore, a sewing machine cannot possibly follow the change in direction of the surface of the curtain or drapery in the vicinity of the folds forming the pleats. Even if the attachment is performed by hand, the pleated upper portion of the curtain or drapery becomes unduly distorted because of the impossibility of attaching the tape that supports the cooperating snap members to the surface of the curtain or drapery.
The following patents disclose the use of cooperating snap fit members to attach a curtain or drapery to an overhead support:
U.S. Pat. No. 2,934,782 to Wootton, issued May 3, 1960; U.S. Pat. No. 3,296,651 to Baker, issued January 10, 1067; U.S. Pat. No. 3,626,429 to Toder, issued December 7, 1971; Ford, U.S. Pat. No. 4,115,899 issued Sept. 26, 1978; and Ohman, U.S. Pat. No. 4,584,737, issued Apr. 29, 1986. In addition, U.S. Pat. No. 3,992,749 to Getchell, issued Nov. 23, 1976, shows a method of attaching a drape or curtain in such a manner as to adjust height of the drape from the floor, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,153,097 to Pettibone, issued May 8, 1979 discloses cooperating snap members to attach a skirt to the perimeter of a table. The Ford U.S. Pat. No. 4,115,899 discloses the use of cooperating snap members to hang the upper edge of a curtain and a liner on opposite sides of a center line of a vertical plane passing through the central portion of an overhead horizontal track from which both the curtain and the liner are supported. The cooperating snap means of the Ford patent are offset vertically, which necessitates employing a drapery and a liner of different vertical dimensions.
It is easily observed from a study of the previously disclosed patents that were found in a preliminary novelty search that none of the devices of the disclosed prior art enabled a snap fit to be made between a curtain or drapery and a supporting carrier that is movable along an overhead essentially horizontal track without causing undue deformation of the attached upper portion of the curtain or drapery when the cooperating snap fit members engage one another.